Syria's grip on Aleppo weakening

The Syrian regime's grip on the country's second city and main commercial
centre is weakening.

Syrian regime forces storming the town of al-Atareb in the northwestern province of AleppoPhoto: Getty Images

By a Daily Telegraph correspondent in Aleppo

7:19PM GMT 07 Mar 2012

For almost a year Aleppo has managed to stave off major manifestations of the Syrian uprising from its streets, but as rebel fighters battle for control of outlying villages and build ranks in neighbouring Idlib, the city is increasingly unable to remain a bystander to the revolt.

It is a city on high alert. Heavily guarded police booths are stationed at the bottom of central streets. Sand bags are piled high up the walls of the dozens of security and military complexes scattered across Syria's most populous city. Armed watchmen stand nervously from the lookout posts.

The charred, crumbled facade of the Security Preservation barracks in Aleppo's Military Intelligence bureau, destroyed by twin car bombs last month is a powerful reminder of the dangers they face.

The rebel Free Syrian Army is too poorly equipped to hold ground when faced with the full force of the regime's army, now turning its focus on neighbouring opposition heartland of Idlib. The response is guerrilla war; small units conducting attacks on government centres, activists told the Daily Telegraph.

"[The FSA] are preparing themselves for bombing missions against regime security bases here," said an activist calling himself Hamoud, whose father is a commander in the FSA. "Idlib is their training ground. Their numbers increase every day, and they have more weapons. Now they have turned their focus on Aleppo and the capital."

"Every two to three weeks, especially on Friday, they run operations," said 'Ahmed', from the Local Coordination Committee of an Aleppo district. "They don't have a base here but they live among us in secret".

In central Aleppo support for the regime remains fierce. The mood among the traders in the crumbling alleyways of the towns historic old city is bitter. Once a global trading hub, Aleppo benefited from the government's push to open up the market. The Aleppan elite feels it owes its prosperity to the stability that the regime provides.

The city's silence in the past year, save for demonstrations at the city's university, became grist for jokes among revolutionary Syrians. Damascus activists held placards with the message "URGENT! ALEPPO REBELS – IN 2050!". "Aleppo wouldn't rise even it took Viagra", joked another sign.

But gradually this is changing. In the poorer districts of Marjeh, Fardouz, Saltine, Saif el Dawla, locals furtively scrawl anti-government messages on the walls of dilapidated buildings. Protests that lasted seconds now swell to crowds of hundreds on Fridays and at night time when the security forces are less alert said activists.

As they poured onto the streets after class, more than a hundred schoolchildren in Marjeh immediately broke into anti-government chants. "Bashar you donkey, you have no time left!" shouted girls under the age of ten, wearing plaid skirts and blue jumpers of their uniform.

Fridays in Aleppo central streets are filled with complicated cat and mouse games. Shabiha, shoddily dressed men in body armour and clutching kalashnikovs surround restive districts, public buses are hired to draft in extra troops. Leaving the mosque after prayers, men walked, swapping sidelong glances, building up the courage to join into groups and shout against the regime.

Fearing to further ignite tensions the regime had largely held back from the scorched earth approach adopted with the revolutionary cities if Deraa and Homs.

"The regime have been able to disperse protesters without shooting at them," explained Hamoud. "Most of the ruling people here are Sunni. If they treat it like Homs or other cities it will be a huge catastrophe for the ruling system here. Most of the people know each other. That is why he tried to do it in a clever way. To begin with they arrested protesters, but at the beginning they did not shoot so as not to aggravate families further".

But as the protests have started to swell, patience for a gentler approach has been lost in the grapple for control. Security forces opened fire on protesters across Aleppo killing sixteen earlier last month locals reported.

Significant also are the cracks appearing in the regime's infrastructure. Defections, now common in the ranks of the Syrian army, are also appearing in the 'Mukhabarat'; the feared internal security apparatus.

Ahmed's father is an intelligence officer in Aleppo's security apparatus. Tapping phone calls, posing as taxi drivers, lurking on street corners these men spy on residents, watching and listening for signs of dissent against the Syrian president. Now he wants to join the opposition.

"Many security men are leaving their stations and fleeing to Idlib where the regime cannot touch them," said 'Ahmed'. "My father knows many colleagues who want to escape. If the police dessert him Assad will have no one left, the regime will melt away."